SE Asian Anglicans slam U.S. church

SE Asian Anglicans slam U.S. church

MALAYSIA: The Anglican Church in Southeast Asia announced on Friday it has broken ties with its U.S. counterpart for consecrating openly gay bishop V. Gene Robinson, deepening the church's global rift on the issue of homosexual ordination.

Archbishop Yong Ping Chung, the Anglican Primate for Southeast Asia, said leaders representing around 170,000 Anglicans in nine Asian countries voted unanimously on Nov. 20 to cut ties with the Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of the 77 million-member worldwide Anglican Communion.

The vote was taken at a special meeting of the church's Southeast Asian province called after Robinson's Nov. 2 consecration as Bishop of New Hampshire, a decision that has thrown the church into tumult around the world and split it into camps of liberals and conservatives.

Robinson is the first openly gay man to hold the position of bishop in any major Christian denomination.

Yong said the province regarded Robinson's consecration as "a flagrant disregard of the fundamental teachings of the Bible" that it could not support, and announced that communion with the Episcopalian Church "is now broken." -- AP